Episode 204 - Hopping Over to Himyar

At last, an episode about a Lost Kingdom! (It’s just that people knew it was there the whole time).

For the first half of the first millennium CE, Himyar was based in what is today Yemen and flourished thanks to its role in inter-regional trade. We’ll discuss the political landscape of ancient southern Arabia, the conversion of the Himyarite dynasty from polytheism to Judaism, and recently published research on environmental factors that contributed to the Himyarite state’s decline and eventual conquest.

Links

• Zafar/Yemen - a Brief Summary (via Heidelberg University)

• Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (via Wikisource)

• Zafar, Capital of Himyar, Ibb Province, Yemen: First Preliminary Report: Summer 1998 and Autumn 2000, Second Preliminary Report: 2002, Third Preliminary Report: 2003, Fourth Preliminary Report: 2004 (Archäologische Berichte aus dem Yemen)

• Arabia and Ethiopia (Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity)

• Zafar, Capital of Himyar, Seventh Preliminary Report, February–March 2007-2008

• A Late Antique Christian king from Ẓafār, southern Arabia (Antiquity)

• Non-Destructive Chemical Analysis of Old South Arabian Coins, Fourth Century BCE to Third Century CE (Archaeometry)

• Droughts and societal change: The environmental context for the emergence of Islam in late Antique Arabia (Science)

• Megadrought Contributed to Fall of Jewish Kingdom in Arabia, Rise of Islam, Study Suggests (Ha’aretz)

• Speleothems (Paleoclimatology)